Delroy Chuck

Good humanrelationship is based on trust. When we trust our doctor, banker, lawyer, pastor, colleague and, I dare say, government, it becomes easy to believe and have confidence in what they say or do. Trust is usually cemented over time but can be destroyed instantaneously. As another general election beckons, the real issue is which party can the people of Jamaica trust?

The Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, and the PNP have the gall to raise this issue of trust and dare to ask whether the JLP can be trusted. Well, who can trust the PM and the PNP after the still unsettled scandal of Trafigura Beheer? To this day, no one is sure why the money was sent and even if it has been returned. We know it was spent by the PNP for their September 2006 conference, yet Portia told us it was poor people's money that the party depended on. Can we trust them to be open and transparent?

Money not identified

The PM in her first party presidential address boldly announced a $635 million clean-up and beautification programme - nine months later, the money is not yet identified and the little work that is going on is being paid from the Tourism Enhancement Fund. Moreover, the few projects started are nothing more than crash programme work for the comrades, which is definitely the case in North East St. Andrew. How do we trust a government that is so partisan and barefaced in its allocation of work?

The PM, the Most Honourable Portia Simpson Miller, was at her least honourable when she tried in Annotto Bay last week to scold the JLP's policy on education. She tried unashamedly to suggest that the JLP cannot be trusted, as it promised free education but has now reversed it to tuition-free education. From 1998, when I was JLP Spokesman on Education, the JLP's policy was, and is, to remove cost-sharing, which was imposed in 1991 by the PNP administration, of which Portia was a senior member.

On the issue of education, the PNP just cannot be trusted. In 1989, the PNP promised to make education a priority. Eighteenyears later, education has never been in such a crisis, without resources and with most graduates leaving secondary institutions without qualification, certification or ready for meaningful employment. Also, in 1989, Michael Manley declared in Half-Way Tree square that God will judge him if the cess imposed by the JLP government on university students was not removed as soon as the PNP took office - 18-years later, the cess remains. In 2002, the PNP promised to remove cost-sharing by 2005 - to its utter disgrace that promise was not kept.

In 2003, Parliament debated a motion from Edward Seaga and agreed to an historic bipartisan parliamentary accord on education. I remembered it well as Audley Shaw and myself worked out the details with Maxine Henry-Wilson. The accord would simply transform the whole education system. There were specific areas of agreement, including increasing the percentage of the Budget from 10 per cent to 15 per cent over a five-year period, removal of the shift system, home work centres, etc. To the government's disgrace, it has simply ignored that solemn parliamentary accord. How then can the PM and the PNP talk about trust?

A 'bankable' word

When politicians, or anyone, give their word, it must be 'bankable'. Last year, Minister Richard Azan asked MPs to name one road in their constituencies to be fixed promptly. Perhaps he meant we should name a road in his constituency, as while he was fixing 28 and more roads in NW Clarendon, none was fixed in JLP held constituencies. When promises are made they must be kept, otherwise trust disappears. If we cannot have trust and confidence in the words and promises of our leaders, it is time for them to go.